ASHBURN, Va. — The seam route, I think, was front of mind for the Commanders going into the NFL Draft.
How many times last season did Washington’s back seven flail at tight ends and wide receivers from around the globe who blew past its linebackers and DBs for chunk play after chunk play down the middle of the field? Actually, it wasn’t just the seam routes: Corner routes were open, too. So were wheel routes down the sidelines, and choice routes out of the backfield, and crossing routes over the middle. As the defensive line failed, play after play, week after week, to get home, the linebackers and secondary were badly exposed.
Sonny Styles, like Leo Chenal and Odafe Oweh and Nick Cross and K’Lavon Chaisson, won’t solve all those problems by himself. But Washington now has more options to spare itself the weekly bloodlettings it endured this past season, when injuries and age and a decided lack of speed left the Commanders unit eating dust. With its defense cratering, Washington lost five games by at least 21 points in a season for the first time since 1961.
Adam Peters and Dan Quinn vowed that things would change, dramatically. Getting Styles caps an almost complete overhaul of the defense over the last few weeks.
Washington and the Ohio State All-American linebacker fell into an almost giddy embrace Thursday as the draft board opened in front of the Commanders in the first round, clearing a path for them to take the freakishly athletic Styles with the seventh pick. Arizona opting for Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love with the third pick sent the first round spinning. Tennessee took Styles’ Buckeye teammate, wide receiver Carnell Tate, with the fourth pick; linebacker Arvell Reese, who many had pegged to the Jets at two, fell to the Giants and their new coach, John Harbaugh, at five. Not great news for Washington, but it left Styles on the board.
And when the Chiefs moved up from nine in a trade with Cleveland to take LSU cornerback Mansoor Delane sixth — somehow, Kansas City seemed to think Washington would take Delane at seven; wonder how they got that idea? — the Commanders had their guy.
“I didn’t think a corner would go in front of us,” Peters said. “But that’s also because none of those teams would take him. But the trade, that was probably, when that happened, we were just like, ‘OK, we got this.’ That was probably the moment. A little bit nervous before that.”
Styles popped at the combine in Indianapolis in February, posting a Relative Athletic Score of 9.99 out of 10 — the fourth-highest mark out of more than 3,000 linebackers measured since 1987. The Commanders love RAS as a metric. And Peters loves athletic linebackers like Fred Warner, the 49ers four-time first-team All-Pro who’s anchored San Francisco’s defense since 2018. The comparisons of Warner with Styles, whose father, Lorenzo, played six NFL seasons and won a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams in 1999, had tied Sonny Styles to Washington ever since.
Peters was reluctant to make comparisons Thursday — “Fred, he’s a gold jacket,” he said. But Styles is not a workout wonder.
You don’t get the Ohio State Block O jersey — given out in honor of Bill Willis, the Hall of Fame linebacker who starred for the Buckeyes in the 1940s, helped break the NFL’s color barrier for the Browns and was the first defensive player and lineman in school history to have his jersey retired — if you’re not serious about the craft. Styles and his brother Lorenzo, Jr., a cornerback expected to be a Day Three pick in this year’s draft, played together in Columbus.
Styles made the move from safety to linebacker incredibly quickly the last two years, showing an ability to run fit while still being able to turn his hips and run like the former DB he is.
“The biggest thing coming in, as a rookie, you’re not just going to just immediately be a leader,” Styles told reporters on a video call Thursday. “It’s more so by the way you work, earn the respect of everyone around you by showing up to work every day, doing what you’re supposed to, great attitude, great energy, doing your job, especially when you get out there for OTAs and things like that, knowing my playbook and all those things. I think that’s going to earn the respect of the vets. And eventually, if I do become the green dot guy, if that were to happen, yeah, you’ve got to be able to lead the guys. That’s kind of part of the job. So I’m willing to do that, for sure.”
But Styles, like Chenal, and Cross, and so many of the other defensive players Washington’s brought in for new defensive coordinator Daronte Jones, isn’t going to be locked in at one position. The Commanders plan to put him all over the field. They’ll use his size to rush the passer, his cover skills to play in the deep third and his improved tackling in the box. The plan is for Jones’ defense to look and play a lot like the defenses he was a part of in Minnesota under Brian Flores, which brought rushers from everywhere, shape-shifting from play to play.
Quinn was long rumored to be enamored with Styles, having had his own special linebacker in Seattle and in D.C. in Bobby Wagner, at both ends of Wagner’s stellar career. One hopes that both Wagner and the Commanders can find a role for him next season that respects his standing. I don’t know if that’s as a part-time player or full-time coach. But Styles would benefit, as would all the other new defensive-side guys, with daily exposure to the future Hall of Fame linebacker.
Styles and Chenal, and a Frankie Luvu no longer charged with putting a hand down at defensive end, have all kinds of disruptive, sideline-to-sideline promise. Oweh and Chaisson and the returning Dorance Armstrong are charged with collapsing pockets; ends Charles Omenihu and Deatrich Wise Jr., also coming off a season-ending injury, have to set the edge against the run. Cross’ speed plays in the secondary. The Commanders are hoping that Mike Sainristil, Trey Amos and newly signed Amik Robertson hold up at corner. Who knows if they’ll all jell together, or quickly, or effectively?
What they won’t do is do any of that slowly. Moving forward, slow is out.